


Into that Bright Morning

by redjacket



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Or as fluffy as I could make it, Wondertrev Fic Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 07:52:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redjacket/pseuds/redjacket
Summary: After the war, Etta explained to Diana that soulmates knew each other by touch and by the accompanying rush of the other person's emotions. For most people, that was it, but a very few continued to feel little rushes from the other person even if they weren't touching.Diana didn't think about it much after she lost Steve.It didn't occur to her to think about it, a hundred years later, when, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, she felt an odd, pleasantly tired sense of expectation.Across town, a man stepped off the train at Guard du Nord. He hoisted his bag more securely against his shoulder and smiled. London had been interesting but he felt like he had waited his whole life to get to Paris.





	Into that Bright Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [euphoriapotion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriapotion/gifts).



Etta explained soulmates to Diana in the months after the war.

Amazons did not have soulmates the way that humans did. They experienced similar bonds but they forged them through deliberate choice not what Charlie had sneeringly called happenstance and Sameer more glowingly described as destiny.

Human soulmates knew each other by touch. The first touch was accompanied by a rush of emotions – the other person’s emotions.

It explained why Diana’s curious wonder at seeing Steve – the first man she had ever seen – had been tinged with a strange sense of worry and fear, only just overwhelmed by an awe that did not quite feel like her own.

For most soulmates, it was a limited experience. They might continue to feel little surges of their soulmate’s emotions when they touched, if they were particularly strong. Some grew so close that they no longer had to touch for it to happen.

There were whispers that some soulmates, rare and wonderfully, could to hear each other’s thoughts in times of great need. But it was not widely believed.

The explosion on the airfield in Diana’s battle against Ares had left her momentarily deaf. She should not have been able to hear anything except the ringing in her ears. Certainly not Steve’s desperate voice.  

Diana had still heard every word Steve said with complete clarity. She had heard – felt – every word of his goodbye.

She had felt how much he loved her, even as he flew away from her.

Etta had explained it to her, what soulmates meant among humans.

Diana had not thought much about soulmates, after that.

She did not think about what it meant, a hundred years later, when, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, she felt an odd, pleasantly tired sense of expectation. She glanced at the clock and made herself a coffee and went about her day.

Across town, a man stepped off the train at Guard du Nord. He hoisted his bag more securely against his shoulder and smiled. London had been interesting but he felt like he had waited his whole life to get to Paris.

Though he would have preferred to linger, he did not waste time getting to his hotel. The temperature was already plunging and the forecast was calling for snow.

\--

Diana always woke up early. She had never shaken off that part of her training – she has never wanted to.

It was strange, the sudden desire to stay in bed, the sudden impulse that she had earned it.

She pushed it aside and got up, opening her bedroom curtains wide as she always did.

Diana grinned. It was snowing out.

Last night, the forecast had called for Paris to get more snow than it had in last hundred years. When Diana turned on the TV that morning, the newscasters were running through the list of everything that was closed. The Louvre was on the list – most of Paris was on the list – and police were asking anyone who did not absolutely have to go out to stay home.

Diana got ready for the day anyway. There had been very few instances of the Louvre closing unexpectedly in her long career there. She always volunteered to be the person to go in, if only to direct confused and crabby tourists somewhere open and safe.

There was no danger to her, after all. And she loved the snow.

There had been a moment, the first snowfall after she lost Steve, when she thought she might hate it, but she had been staying with Etta then, and a large snowfall was rare enough that her little girls had been beside themselves with joy. It was impossible to harden her heart to it when faced with such delight. If the memory of Steve's lost smile was too much to bear sometimes, Diana could remember the delight of those two little girls catching snowflakes on their tongues and the small, droopy, wet snowman they had managed to make together.

The thought of it made Diana grin, as she stepped out her front door into snow that reached half way up her boot. And if a strange feeling of anticipation rose up in the back of her throat, it was not so extraordinary. There was already more snow on the ground than they had had in years and it was still falling in fat, heavy flakes.

Except for an intrepid few, the streets were largely deserted. Most people seemed to be taking the authorities’ advice and staying off the streets and warm inside.

The main exception seemed to be small packs of children trailed by their indulgent parents, out to marvel at the sight.

Diana rounded the corner of her street and ran into one such group, dodging a stray snowball. Smokers usually crowded around the doors of the budget hotel on the corner of her street but they had been chased off by a horde of children who were shrieking their delight as a flurry of snowballs flew. There appeared to be a few parents watching over them with their morning coffees from the sidelines, fewer still taking part in the snowball fight.

Diana grinned at them, nodding to the parents waiting as she walked past.

She felt a sudden spike of shocked recognition. It seemed to come from nowhere and she turned bewildered, just in time to see two children tackle one of the grown ups they had involved in their game, all of them sprawling into a snowbank. Parents waded in, pulling the laughing children off their target.

Diana froze as the man picked himself up. She felt her heart leap into her throat and could not tell if it was her or him or both of them feeling it together.

There was no mistaking those blue eyes. She had _never_ forgotten them.

Steve Trevor stood before her like something out of dream. He seemed impossibly real, only metres away, as if she could walk just a few steps and touch him.

Diana couldn’t believe it. She closed her eyes.

She had seen those children knock him over.

“Diana?” he said and despite all the time that had passed, his voice was exactly as she remembered it.  

She opened her eyes. Steve was still there. He had snow in his hair and on his coat, his modern ski jacket, he was wearing _jeans,_ and there was so much hope in his eyes she could hardly stand it.

He took a step and it broke her sudden paralysis. Diana rushed forward and his arms opened. They caught her and closed around her waist as she took his face in her hands and drank in every inch of him.

A smile broke over his face and there was such a crash of combined joy inside her that Diana wondered how it could even be contained within the two of them.

“Angel,” Steve said, low and quiet, so no one else could hear, and reached up to brush a stray strand of her hair back.

Diana laughed, feeling delirious with happiness, and kissed him.

He felt just the same. He _tasted_ the same.

His hand tangled in her hair and he kissed her just as desperately as she was kissing him.

Steve had come back to her.

Diana could not say how long they stood there, basking in each other's presence and kissing when they needed to be closer still. Long enough that when Diana pulled back reluctantly, Steve reached out and brushed a layer of plump snowflakes from her hair.

Diana took his hand, cold – he needed gloves – and folded her fingers in his. Steve smiled. She could not help but to reach out and trace the curve of it with her fingers.

“I have so many questions,” Diana told him. She did not doubt it was Steve, her Steve, and she was hungry to know everything she could about him, everything story they had not gotten a chance to tell each other before.

Steve kissed her finger tips. “I'll do my best.”

\--

Diana took him to the Louvre with her.

There were a few security guards in and a handful of disappointed tourists clustered around the entrance who gave them dirty looks when Diana opened the staff entrance for herself and Steve.

Steve had held her hand for the entire walk there. They hadn't spoken much yet. They had been too busy stopping every few feet to kiss or touch each other.

Diana didn't think she would ever get enough of kissing him now that she could again.

But he paused as she led him inside, looking around with curious eyes.

“Wow,” Steve said and smiled at her when she raised an eyebrow at her, putting his hands in his pockets. “How long have you worked here?”

“Since the 80s,” Diana told him. She was very aware that, though she knew this was her Steve, she knew next to nothing about him.

Not now.

“I was born in ‘82,” Steve told her, he spent another moment looking up at the glass of the pyramid before looking to her.

“In Philadelphia?” Diana asked, thinking of the pieces of his life before that she had collected like previous stones after he was gone. She walked backwards through the hallways. She did not want to lose sight of him for a moment. “Or Boston?”

Steve laughed, clearly pleased that she remembered. “No, California this time. But we moved around a bit. My mother was Air Force. She flew fighter jets.”

“And you followed her example?” Diana asked. She could not imagine Steve without his pilot’s wings.

“Close enough,” Steve said. “It’s not like it was. Like I remember it being. I was combat rescue, this time. I flew helicopters mostly, though I'm certified for, well, a lot more than that.”

“Was?” Diana asked, tilting her head at him.

“I took my discharge last month,” Steve told her. “Special Forces has an early age out and they were only willing to sign my waiver once. They wanted to transfer me to piloting drones or training. I wasn't interested.”

There was something calm and resolute in his eyes. Diana took his hand again. All she could feel from him was warmth and the sense of being in exactly the place he was meant to be.

“Come on,” he said, with a crooked smile that she remembered all too well. He squeezed her hand. “Show me around?”

Diana did, walking him through the empty halls. It felt like the world had fallen away, like they were the only two people left in it, their footsteps and voices the only sounds left.

It felt like a dream.

But Steve's hand was warm in hers. He was solid beside her.

The security guards regarded them with surprise and slight suspicion, both because Diana had come in on such a day and that she had someone with her.

Steve's presence, she thought as he shook their hands and charmed them with a familiar ease, was the greater shock. Diana never brought anyone in with her.

Steve looked at her, something soft in his eyes, after the first guard she introduced him to called her Mlle Prince.

“You kept it?” Steve asked, surprised and touched, when they were alone again.

Diana swallowed and nodded. She could hardly do anything but reach into her purse and pull out the watch she kept with her always.

Steve's eyes widened. He took it with steady but tentative fingers.

“It was what I had left of you,” Diana told him. “Of course I kept it.”

He stared at the watch for long time before looking up at her. They were standing in front of _Psyche Revived_ , in a hall with some of the greatest sculptures in the world, and Steve still looked at her as if she were the most beautiful, most precious thing there.

“I've dreamed of you for as long as I can remember,” Steve said. His voice was soft and his eyes, she had seen his eyes look like that before, the first and only time he had told her he loved her. “Of before. I looked for you every time I was on leave, in London and in Belgium. I didn't think to try Paris.”

It was both an ache and a balm, knowing he had tried to find her.

“I've missed you,” Diana said, reaching out to touch his cheek. Warmth bloomed in her chest. “I've missed you terribly, some days.”  

“Diana...” he whispered. His hands were on her waist and his eyes flicked down to her lips then back up to her face.

_I love you_.

Diana heard him as clear as a bell, as clear as if the thought had been her own. It seemed to startle him for a moment as much as it did her – it was only a rumour, soulmates couldn't actually hear each other's thoughts, the battle with Ares had been an exception, one intense moment and yet...and yet...

Diana pressed her hand against her mouth for a moment to keep herself from sobbing but it was gone in the next, replaced by Steve's lips against hers. She thought she might lose track of where he began and she ended.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

For a long time, it was all that either of them could think.

\--

Steve had never been to Paris before. Diana was determined to show him every inch of the Louvre when it was like this, empty and silent, like so few people got to experience.

But they kept getting distracted.

Steve was more interested in watching her face as she explained the history of a piece to him than the artwork that she showed him. Diana was more interested in the way his eyes crinkled and went tender and sweet when he looked at her.

They made out in her office. Diana could not think of a moment when she had been more unprofessional.

She could not bring herself to care.

The light started to fade outside, though the snow had not stopped.  

Eventually, they made their way back to the glass pyramid.

They stopped together, looking up and out at the swirl of snow. Diana glanced at Steve after a moment; his face was rapt.

“It really is magical,” Steve said and he looked at her and smiled.

Diana leaned over to kiss him. She let go of his hand so she could brush his hair back where it flopped just so over his forehead and smoothed her fingers over his cheek.

Steve offered her his hand.

Diana was wearing jeans and winter boots and an old, soft sweater. Steve was wearing dark jeans and a light denim shirt that Diana was just noticing was buttoned wrong. His hair was longer and he had the beginnings of a beard.

But Diana’s hair had come undone from her pony tail when they had been...diverted in her office. It hung loosely around her face. Steve’s eyes were blue and bright and his smile still curved just a little more on one side.

She took his hand. His other hand found her waist.

They were very close.

Steve felt the same. Diana couldn't get over it.

It could have been a hundred years ago.  

“You probably know by now that I’m a terrible dancer,” Steve said. His eyes were light, playful. His lips were still full and dark pink from all the time she had spent kissing them.

“All men are, by Themysciran standards,” Diana told him. Steve laughed and licked his lips distractingly. “This is only swaying. Anyone can sway.”

_There is no one I would rather sway with._

Diana knew Steve had heard her by the way his eyes went intent and his grin turned so very pleased. She knew by the warmth that echoed in her own chest.

“I know I’m blowing a once in a lifetime chance to wander around one of the world’s best museums when it’s completely deserted,” Steve said. “But...it’s getting late. We could get out of here and – I’d like to take you out to dinner, somewhere nice. It didn’t sound like much was opening today, though so – I could make you dinner?”

There was a completely charming flush of pink high on his cheeks.  

Diana supposed that most people would not have counted three days in the trenches and behind enemy lines as a first date.

“You can cook?” Diana asked.

“I’m a good cook,” Steve promised.

“The Louvre will be here tomorrow,” Diana said, thinking, before she could stop herself: _And the next day and the next day and the next..._

Steve heard and grinned and kissed her.

\--  

It had continued snowing most of the day. The gangs of children had disappeared inside as night fell and only overworked snow ploughs and brave souls trying to shovel were out.

Diana breathed in the cold air as they stepped outside and grinned as she looked out at the world. The snow drifts were up to Diana’s thighs. The streets of Paris were an empty, dazzling white.

She wanted to freeze that moment in time. She did not think it could be more perfect.

A snowball hit her in the back.

Diana turned to see Steve’s ridiculously wide grin. He was already packing together another snowball even as he started to back up and he felt _so pleased_ with himself. Diana had to bite her lip to keep from laughing from sheer glee.

Steve tossed the new snowball at her playfully. Diana ducked out of the way and stooped down, grabbing her own handful of snow. Steve took off running, trying to dodge behind a bench to get out of the way of hers.

Diana blocked his next attempt and they chased each other out of the courtyard, into the street. Diana’s face hurt from how widely she was smiling. She glanced over her shoulder, checking to see if anyone was watching, before gathering up a huge handful of snow and vaulting up, over Steve’s head.

She dumped it on him just as he looked up.

Steve sputtered as she landed, shaking it out of his hair and jerking a little as it slid down his back. She could feel the chill of it as it melted against his skin.

“Uncalled for,” Steve complained but he was giggling, flushed from the cold and as beautiful as she had ever seen him.   

“You started it,” Diana challenged. “And after you promised me dinner!”

“I did,” Steve agreed, his face light. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Diana grinned. She had an idea, one she thought Steve would enjoy.

“I will ensure you are not distracted again,” Diana told him.

Steve only had a moment to look confused before she got a secure grip on him and leapt again, up into the chilly night air heading to her apartment.

Steve’s delight was overwhelming. There were times that Diana enjoyed flying more than others but she did not think she had ever felt Steve’s complete elation at it. He was laughing out loud when they touched down on her balcony, giddy and looking at her as if she were the most wonderful thing in the world.

As soon as their feet were on solid ground, he kissed her until he was breathless.  

“You’ve gotten better at that,” he said, eyes sparkling.

“I hope your cooking has similarly improved,” Diana said. Once, before, he had made her breakfast the morning they left for the front.

The most that could be said for it was that it was edible.

“Hey, I did what I could with war rations,” Steve said, his nose wrinkling. “And I’ve spent too much time eating MREs this time around to waste my time eating bad food.”

Diana grabbed his hand and kept it even as she opened the balcony door and pulled him inside. He followed her without hesitation.

“I want to hear everything,” she told him. “Every story. Every moment.”

Steve took a step closer and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Me too, Angel. Everything I missed.”

\--

Steve raided her fridge and cupboard, completely at ease, even as Diana had to tell him where to find pots and pans and olive oil. With anyone else, she would have found it strange, this easiness between them, but with Steve it just seemed right.

For all that they challenged each other, for all that they had only known each other a handful of days, for everything that was still _new_ between them despite the flame Diana had been carrying inside herself for a hundred years, Steve had always felt familiar, always struck some cord within her.

It did not seem odd for him to be standing in her kitchen, glancing at her over his shoulder and smiling as he stirred a pot on the stove, dressed in an oversized sweatshirt she had dug out of the back of her closet for him to change into. He had laughed when he saw it – it was from Euro Disney and comically large, Diana had ended up with it from a holiday present swap years ago –  but changed out of his wet shirt with a wink and a grin.

It felt natural. Like it was meant to be.

It took longer than it should have for him to cook a simple if delicious pasta for them. Whenever Steve glanced back at her, his expression besotted and so happy, Diana had to reach out and touch him. Too often, she ended up molded against his back, her arms around his chest, her cheek pressed against the back of his shoulder.

He still felt the same.

Except...as she watched him, as they sat down to eat together, Diana thought maybe Steve had little less weight on his shoulders. He did not try to pretend. He did not hide the pain and heartbreak that came with his new stories of lost comrades and the missions he had taken part in but...Diana remembered the hopelessness she had felt echoes of at times, before, the sharp feeling that the war would never end, that the world was ending.  

She thought there was little more peace in his eyes now, a little less desperation in his bearing. Maybe it was because this time Steve had lived to see the end of his own war, even if he was no surer of what he to do with himself afterwards than he had been then.

But he smiled, open and heartfelt, as he spoke of his family – his sister and his nieces and still living parents and grandparents – of his friends and his childhood and his travels.

He asked her questions, first about Etta and the boys, voice gentle as he began to sense sadness tingeing her answers. They took a break, when he understood how hard it was for her, and washed the dishes together.

Diana made coffee for herself to delay a little longer. Though she suspected Steve, more than anyone, would understand why she had withdrawn from the world to the extent that she had –   that he would never judge her for it – it was still a daunting thing for her to discuss.

But Diana had never been a coward.

When she returned to the living room, Steve was standing at the window, holding the curtain back and looking out at the still falling snow. Diana hesitated for just a moment before putting her coffee down on the table and joining him.  

Steve turned when Diana came closer, his face serious. She knew he felt her trepidation.

He took her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it. His eyes never left her face.  

“It doesn’t have to be tonight, you know,” Steve said, kindness in his voice and eyes. “We have time. I’ll be right here for as long as you’ll have me.”

Diana loved him so very much.

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him softly.

It was easier to speak of it, of everything, after that.

\--

It stopped snowing at midnight.

Paris was quiet, everything muffled by a thick blanket of sparkling white.  

Diana and Steve did not notice. They were curled up together on Diana’s couch, bodies loosely entwined.

They stayed up most of the night talking.

They had time.

\--

Sunlight streamed through Diana’s windows too early the next morning. Diana wrinkled her nose. The world was brighter than usual.

It was the snow, of course, reflecting back the sunlight. Diana could hear the sound of people digging themselves out, the rumble of snow ploughs and the cheerful shouts of children taking advantage of a snowy Saturday.

Just the snow.

Steve made a grumpy noise and curled tighter around her without waking. She turned in his arms and looked at his still sleeping face. Looking was not enough; she smoothed her thumb over his cheek.

Diana decided she liked him with stubble. It was a giddy realization.  

Steve sighed, reacting to the rising joy inside of her. He blinked his eyes open slowly and smiled lazily when he saw her watching him.

“Morning Angel,” he said, voice soft and rough from sleep. His eyes drifted closed again in the next moment and his arm tightened more securely around her waist.

In Veld, he had been up and ready before she was. Diana had never gotten to see him like this, peaceful and sleep warm and soft with the morning light spilling over his hair, making it a mess of gold on the pillow beside her.

She liked it.

Steve's thoughts and feelings were fuzzy and slow. And honest, still half asleep as he was. He was warm and he was comfortable and so in love with her that it would have made Diana cry if she had been able to stop smiling.

Later that day, Steve would go and check out of his budget hotel and bring his things to her apartment, they would giggle in the market as they shopped together and spend the afternoon strolling through the snowy streets after she forced him to buy gloves, hand in hand. Next week, Steve would charm all the security guards at the Louvre and cancel the train ticket he had to Berlin and Diana would begin the long process of sharing all her favourite places with him just to see him in the spaces she loved. In a month, Steve would try to soothe her wounds even as they already disappearing after Diana foiled an attempted attack and she would meet his sister while she was in London for work. In six months, Steve would meet the rest Justice League and demonstrate to all of them that he was still willing and able to defend himself and her and anyone else who needed it. A year after they had found each other again, Steve would be working for them and living with her in Paris and Diana’s phone would regularly buzz with cheery texts from his mother.

But in that moment, Diana did not think of the future unfurling before them. She thought of how wonderful it was to have him close enough that she hardly had to move at all to kiss him languidly. To run her fingers through his hair and hear him groan. To look into his sleepy blue eyes and think:

_I love you._

Steve smiled, brilliant and bright, and kissed her back, thinking dreamily:

_Forever, Angel._

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for [euphoriapotion](http://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriapotion) (dianasprxnce) for the 2017 WonderTrev Gift Exchange! 
> 
> I hope you like it. I tried to make it fluffy but apparently I'm not the best at that!


End file.
